Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 23, 1992 TAG: 9201230286
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: BRISTOL LENGTH: Long
EVEN HIS FORMER PRISONERS MOURN THE LOSS OF A FRIEND
A lieutenant in the Bristol City Sheriff's Department turned to jail Chaplain Tom Bradley Wednesday and handed him a telephone receiver."Here. I can't handle this. You take it," the veteran law enforcement officersaid.
The caller was a former prisoner at the jail. It was obvious from his voice that he was in tears.
"Chaplain Bradley, I just had to call and say I loved the sheriff, and I love you all, and I'm just heartbroken," the caller sobbed.
Ex-prisoners joined police chiefs and county sheriffs from Virginia and Tennessee in phoning the office Wednesday to express sympathy, after learning about Sheriff Marshall E. Honaker's apparent suicide.
Honaker used to chuckle about how his title and first name would occasionally confuse callers who did not know him about what office he held.
Wednesday, yellow ribbons usually used at crime scenes elsewhere to keep the public out were securing Honaker's own office. Outside, the flag between the jail and city hall flew at half-staff.
Federal authorities had suspected Honaker, 55, of diverting $378,000 in government money between 1987 and 1989 to his own use. Authorities claimed that the money, about 70 percent of what the government paid to house federal prisoners at the Bristol jail, went into his and his wife's private checking account.
After federal agents seized records at the jail and his home Jan. 10, Honaker took a leave of absence from the office he had held for the past 18 years.
Five days later, he stepped down as the 50th president of the National Sheriffs' Association, an organization to which he had belonged since 1957 when he got his first law enforcement job as a deputy in Washington County. He was also a past president of the Virginia Sheriffs' Association.
But as a lawman, he defied stereotyping. Friends, upon hearing of his death, talked not about his recent troubles but about his generosity and kindnesses.
One said the sheriff even had bought shoes for prisoners who had none when they finished their time behind his jail's bars.
He returned to his office Wednesday morning for the first time since the federal investigation began. At 8:40 a.m., he apparently fired a shotgun into his chest. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a Bristol, Tenn., hospital.
Police Chief Oscar Broome, whose department is investigating Honaker's death, would not say whether Honaker left a note and would not disclose other details late Wednesday.
Circuit Court Clerk Edwina Mull said people in city hall had been devastated over what had been coming to light in the federal probe.
The news of Honaker's death, which spreads rapidly through city hall and the rest of Bristol Wednesday morning, triggered even more emotional outpouring.
"We are all experiencing a lot of grief," Mull said.
"He did a lot for our community and he did a lot for people in general. . . . He has always been willing to help anyone who needed him," she said. "In spite of all that's happened, we're going to miss him."
Maj. Eddie Barnes of the city Sheriff's Department said the 48 people working there, already stunned by the accusations against the sheriff, were handling his death as best they could.
"Everybody's hanging in here. We got a pretty good bunch of people. . . . It's tough. But we're hanging," he said. "I just can't stress to you how many friends Marshall Honaker had. . . . He just had an enormous amount."
Some members of the department had been meeting with Chaplain Bradley, not just Wednesday but as the federal case went to a grand jury this week. Bradley said Honaker had asked him if he was going to be in the office this week because Honaker was concerned about how the publicity would affect the employees.
The jail ministry was always open to counsel Honaker's deputies and other employees as well as inmates, and Bradley said Honaker would never ask him what employees might discuss. "He didn't want to know. He gave them that outlet."
Bradley is with the Arlington-based Good News Jail & Prison Ministries, which Honaker approached in 1981 about setting up a ministry in the Bristol jail. There is now a full program including Bible teaching, drug and alcohol and one-on-one counseling handled by an average of 20 volunteers each week.
Through the program, prisoners have gone to area churches to talk to young people about the hazards of drugs. Teachers have brought troubled students to the jail to talk to inmates about straightening themselves out while there is time. It also led to the jail's current GED program to further prisoners' educations.
"He had a positive impact, even on the inmates," said Bradley, who has been involved in the jail ministry since 1981. "I've seen guys come in here in the summer and get out in the winter with no shoes, and he'd buy shoes for 'em."
Honaker was innovative, Bradley said, in seeking ways to improve law enforcement. "That was sort of the way Marshall looked at everything: If it helps one person, let's do it," Bradley said. "And he was a good man. Good men make mistakes just like bad men make mistakes."
Under Honaker, the Bristol jail gained recognition as one of the best in the state.
One of his most visible jail programs involved the city leasing farm property and letting trusties work it. Proceeds were divided 50-50 between the city and owner, with produce and livestock from the farm acreage being used for jail meals and reducing food costs.
Honaker started a drug education program in city schools and the first victim-witness assistance office in Bristol.
"He started to build a library here," Maj. Barnes said. "We have every intention of keeping his programs going, full strip."
Honaker was from a family of hard-working people, acquaintances said.
Honaker was only a boy when he got a job at Blevins Funeral Home, the one now handling his funeral arrangements.
One of the biggest influences on him when he was young seemed to be an uncle, Joe Honaker, a retired police captain. Perhaps it was his uncle's influence that led him to his first deputy's job with the Washington County Sheriff's Department in 1957.
He later worked as an examiner for the Division of Motor Vehicles. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he became a deputy with what was then called the City Sergeant's office in Bristol, now the city Sheriff's Department.
He became acting sheriff in 1973, completing the unexpired term of Sheriff J.N. Ingoldsby. Honaker was elected to his first full term in 1974 and had been sheriff since.
It was in 1977 that he got a spot on the National Sheriffs' Association board of directors. He later served as its sergeant-at-arms and in various vice presidential capacities, working his way to the top. He was sworn in last year in Minneapolis by Gov. Douglas Wilder. An active Democrat, he had campaigned a lot for both Wilder and Attorney General Mary Sue Terry.
Wilder named Honaker to the Virginia Drug Council in 1990. Honaker was also a member of the Virginia Attorney General's Task Force on Domestic Violence.
Honaker took some classes at Southwest Virginia Community College near Richlands, and was on the board of its Law Enforcement Academy.
"He was instrumental in upgrading the status of sheriffs throughout the commonwealth and was widely respected throughout the state," said George M. Warren Jr., a former state senator who is city commonwealth's attorney. Members of the General Assembly sought his advice on bills affecting sheriffs' offices, Warren said.
Honaker also served on a number of state commissions that helped upgrade standards for sheriffs' departments, including those for uniforms, cars, equipment and continuing law enforcement education.
Warren said Honaker provided various kinds of help to many people, but was particularly active in finding ways to aid senior citizens.
"He was just good to people and, believe me, despite all that has happened, Marshall Honaker has a lot of friends in this town who are still his friends," Warren said. "If you weigh all of the good that he did against this thing that has come out, the good will far outweigh the bad."
Dave Farmer and Bert Stanley contributed to this report.
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